21.

I remembered that this was going to be my blog about body acceptance as well, but I didn't post my last "fat rant" here, so here's another, courtesy of The Rotund, a great blog, and my own insights.

In response to this article promoting more plus-sized options on the market, someone commented, "Fat shouldn't be pretty".

So The Rotund muses on that concept.

Shouldn’t - Should and could are interesting words. I used to have an English teacher, when I was in grade school, who would correct students who asked if they COULD go to the bathroom with “Of course you CAN - the question is, are you allowed?” COULD and COULDN’T indicate ability. SHOULD and SHOULDN’T indicate responsible, one might even go so far as to say moral, courses of actions.

It isn’t that fat people lack the ability to be pretty, it’s that they should not as a moral course of action.

I mean, if fat people were to run around feeling good and looking confident, ordinary people might get confused and find them attractive and treat them like actual humans who are autonomous beings! And, well, that would lead to dogs and cats living together, mass hysteria.

Maybe this is the real fear that rests below so much fat hate (and so much hatred of anyone who is “different” - whether it be people of color or transpeople or gay people or people who like show tunes or whatever) - the fear that they might have to question what they thought they knew about themselves, might have to feel their way through unfamiliar territory to be their actual selves instead of relying on media and pop culture to define what is acceptable.

....

Fats should be whatever the hell they want to be. They should be pretty or they should reject the very concept - either way, they should know that they don’t owe anyone anything when it comes to aesthetics.

Fats should dress however the hell they want. They should have the brio to wear fitted clothes or trapeze dresses or skinny jeans or phat pants or anything that expresses what they want to express.

I entirely agree, for one thing. For another, I wonder what it is that terrifies people so much.

( cutting for those sensitive to dieting issues and because this whole thing is a little tl;dr  )

As an entirely different rant, the fact that they're including Forever 21's new line, Faith 21, in that article, makes me laugh. Faith 21, aside from the dumb name, only goes up to a size 15/16*, unlike most plus size stores that go up to 28 or 32 (which means that they're opening an entire new line "only in select stores" to include three sizes that they should have had to begin with). A size 15? is a 2X in that line. Oh yes. Let's make teenagers have that great experience of once again not fitting anything -- only this time in a plus-targeted store.


An aside: if anyone feels like the first part of this should also be behind the cut or if I should title body acceptance rants differently than my normal numbered entries, please let me know.

*US sizing


crossposted to LJ from Dreamwidth